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Handout 1: the History of the English Language 1. Proto-Indo-European

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Cold climate: they had a word for snow: *sneigwh- (cf. Latin nix, Greek

niphos, Gothic snaiws, Gaelic sneachta). Words for beech, birch, elm, ash, oak, apple, cherry; bee, bear, beaver, eagle.

Original location is also deduced from subsequent spread of IE languages.

Handout 1: The history of the English language

Seminar English Historical Linguistics and Dialectology, Andrew McIntyre



1. Proto-Indo-European (roughly 3500-2500 BC)

1.1. Proto-Indo-European and linguistic reconstruction



Bronze age technology. They had gold, silver, copper, but not iron. They rode horses and had domesticated sheep, cattle. Cattle a sign of wealth (cf.

fee/German Vieh ‘cattle’, Latin pecunia ‘money’/pecus ‘cattle’)

Most languages in Europe, and others in areas stretching as far as India, are called Indo-

European languages, as they descend from a language called Proto-Indo-European

(PIE). Here ‘proto’ means that there are no surviving texts in the language and thus that linguists reconstructed the language by comparing similarities and systematic differences between the languages descended from it. The table below gives examples of historically related words in different languages which show either similarities in pronunciation, or systematic differences. Example: most IE languages have /p/ in the first two lines, suggesting that PIE originally had /p/ in these words. Gothic and English have /f/ in these contexts, suggesting that PIE /p/ changed into /f/ in these languages. The underlined sounds furnish other examples of systematic differences between other sounds in IE languages. Systematic differences between sounds in related languages/dialects are very common because over time all languages/dialects

undergo sound changes (sound shifts) in which particular sounds change their

pronunciation.

Agriculture: cultivated cereals *gre-no- (>grain, corn), also grinding of corn *mela- (cf. mill, meal); they also seem to have had ploughs and yokes.

Wheels and wagons (wheel < kw(e)-kwlo < kwel ‘go around’)

Religion: priests, polytheistic with sun worship *deiw-os ‘shine’ cf. Lat. deus, Gk.

Zeus, Sanskrit deva. Patriarchal, cf. Zeus pater, Iupiter, Sanskr. dyaus pitar.

Trade/exchange:*do- yields Lat. donare ‘give’ and a Hittite word meaning ‘take’,

*nem- > German nehmen ‘take’ but in Gk. nemesis (orig. ‘distribution’), *ghabh- > give, Old Irish gaibid ‘take’.





Unclear whether PIE was spoken by a single ethnic group. PIE-speaking community is thought to have been together around 3500-2500 BC (neolithic).

1.3. Indo-European language families

  • Meaning Sanskrit Greek
  • Latin

pater pedem

frater fero

  • Gothic English
  • PIE

PIE split into distinct dialects/languages/families due to migration, language contact, conquest. Ten main families: Tocharian (extinct languages in Western China), Indo- Iranian (Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto...), Armenian, Anatolian (extinct languages in Turkey, Syria, incl. Hittite), Albanian, Greek, Italic (Latin, Romance lges), Balto-Slavic (Latvian, Russian, Czech…) Celtic, Germanic (Gothic, English, German, Danish...) Few languages in/near Europe are not IE (exceptions are Basque, Hungarian, Turkish). For more details, see the family trees and maps on the Moodle page.

father foot brother

  • pita
  • pater

poda phrater phero

hex

  • fadar
  • father

*pəter*ped*bhrater*bher*seks *septm *samos *dekm*druo*edpadam

  • fotu
  • foot

bhratar

brothar brother

bear/carry bharami

baira

saihs sibun sama

taihun trui bear

six seven same

ten

67

  • sas
  • sex

  • septem
  • septa

samah dasa dru

hepta homos similius

deka drys edsame 10 tree eat 3thou live man decem

tree eat

2. Proto-Germanic/Common Germanic (roughly 2000 BC - 250 BC)

adtri twa ed-

itan

tris su tres tu

thri thu three thou

*trei*tu-

Proto-Germanic (Common Germanic): reconstructed ancestor of Germanic

languages:

jivah virah
/wiwos/ /wir/
/kwius/ quick wair
*gweiwere(wolf) *wi-ro-



West Germanic languages: German, Dutch, English

North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish,

Icelandic East Germanic languages (all extinct), e.g. Gothic (the oldest attested Gmc. language)



The asterisk (*) in the last column marks reconstructed forms. (The reconstructions are based on many facts beyond those seen in the table. They reflect 200 years of research.) The similarities and systematic differences in the table suggest a genetic relation between these languages (i.e. that they had the same ancestor language). They can’t be coincidental since the same sound correspondences are found in many other words in these languages, but such correspondences are not found in most other languages in the world (say Arabic, Hungarian, Turkish), and especially not in languages spoken in areas very distant from the areas where IE languages were originally found (e.g. Japanese, Zulu, Mohawk, Maori). Reconstruction is assisted by knowledge of normal patterns of linguistic change for which direct evidence is available (e.g. development of Romance languages from Latin).


Proto-Germanic speakers: originally IE nomads, settled in an area in Nth Germany and Sth Scandinavia, perhaps around 2000 B.C. (give or take several centuries). References to them by Roman authors after about 200 B.C. Very little common Germanic is recorded: a few words written down by Roman writers in 1st century BC & rare artefacts thought to reflect this stage of the language. Proto-Germanic may have been influenced by contact with speakers of now unknown languages (substrate effect: input from conquered people). These languages seem to have contributed a substantial amount of vocabulary to Proto-Germanic.




1.2. What we know about the people who spoke PIE

Inferences about PIE speakers, based on vocabulary common to all/most Indo-European languages, and hence likely to have existed in PIE:

2.1. Proto-Germanic phonology

Initial stress: Proto-Gmc had word-initial stress, whereas in PIE word stress varied according to various different factors. Example: *póds ‘foot’ (nominative singular) vs.

*pedés (genitive singular) (cf. Sanskrit pás/padàs, Gk póus/podós vs. Gothic fótus/fótaus).

They may have lived near Caspian & Black Seas, South Russian steppes. Evidence:
They lived inland but near water. Words for lake, rowing but not for ocean.

2
The History of English

3.2. Anglo-Saxon Settlements

The effects of Grimm’s Law (=The (First) Germanic Sound Shift): A)

Voiceless unaspirated plosives became fricatives

A traditional idea: In 449 AD hordes of Germanic speakers (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians; collectively called the Anglo-Saxons) from what is now Northern Germany/Southern Denmark invaded Britain in waves. Caveat: The idea of an invasion in 449 is now contested. There may have been significant numbers of AngloSaxons in Britain long before.1
PIE pt

  • Germanic
  • Examples

f

ө

x/h

B)

pedislat/foot, pecuslat/Vieh, perlat/for, polygreek/vielGerman, piscislat/fiscOE tonitruslat/thunder, tenuislat/thin, treslat/three

  • k
  • canislat/hound, sequorlat ‘follow’/saíhungoth ‘see’, cornulat/horn

PIE voiced unaspirated plosives lose their voicing



By late 6th cent, Anglo-Saxons dominated British Isles, pushed the Celts to the West (Scotland, Ireland, Wales Cornwall). Very few Celtic words were adopted in English.

The different Germanic dialects they spoke are called Anglo-Saxon or Old English

(the latter term is sometimes confined to the period after about 700 AD when the dialects were established in the British Isles and when the first known texts appeared).
PIE bd

  • Germanic
  • Examples

ptk

C)

labiumlatin/lip, jablokorussian/apple decemlatin/ten, ederelat/eat, sederelat/sit

  • g
  • granumlatin/corn, gynegk ‘woman’/queen, genulat/Knie, agerlat/acre

PIE aspirated stops end up as unaspirated (they became voiced fricatives first, which is ignored here):

3.3. The Viking invasions (787ff)

PIE

bh

  • Germanic
  • Examples

787: Scandinavian (=Viking, Norse, Danish, Norwegian) invasions. Continued for nearly 200 years. In early 11th cent. England was ruled by Danes (Danelaw). Linguistic effects of Scandinavian invasions: bdg

  • bharamiSanskr/ferrelat/bear, fraterlat/brother
  • (PIE bh> Latin f)

(PIE dh> Latin f/d) (PIE gh> Latin h)

dh

dhe-PIE/facerelat/do, forislat/door, vidualat/widow hostislat/Gast, hortislat/garden, homolat/gumogoth

gh

Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon were perhaps mutually intelligible, but inflections differed, resulting in eroded inflection (standard assumption, at least). About 1000 words borrowed into OE in late OE period:

When did this happen? Clue: shift in hemp from Greek kánnabis. The Germanics learned about hemp from the Greeks, who first knew about it around 500 B.C. So the sound shift occurred after 500 B.C. The sound shift was no longer in action by the time the Germanic people had contact with the Romans (1st century B.C.), since Latin

borrowings don’t undergo it (pepper<piper, street<via strata, peach<persica, pound<pondo, tile<tegula).

A note on German: Many German words will have other consonants than those seen above due to the effects of the High German Consonant Shift (3rd-9th century C.E.). We will not describe this here, except to note some of results of the shift:

(2) anger, bag, both, call, die, egg, flat, get, husband, knife, leg, low, sister, steak, take, until, want, window, wrong
(3) Pronouns: they/them/their

(4) Many words with /sk/: sky, skin, skill, skull. (The cluster /sk/ was historically older; in Anglo-Saxon it had shifted to /ʃ/.) Doublets (often with semantic

differentiation): shirt/skirt, shriek/screech, ship/skipper, shatter/scatter.
(5) Other doublets: bathe/bask, church/kirk, whole/hale, ditch/dike (6) Borrowing yields near-synonyms: heaven/sky, carve/cut, craft/skill, hide/skin, sick/ill

(1) a. /t/ > /ts/ or /s/: eat/essen, foot/Fuß, tide/Zeit, ten/zehn b. /p/ > /pf/ or /f/: pepper/Pfeffer, pound/Pfund, ape/affe, top/Zopf
(7) Place names: -by (Derby, Rugby), -thorp (Linthorpe, Althorp)

c. /k/ > /x/: d. /d/ > /t/:

make/machen, cake/Kuchen, Dutch ik/ich day/Tag, dish/Tisch, middle/mittel

3.4. Old English inflectional morphology

e. /Ɵ/ or /ð/ > /d/: thatch/Dach, thistle/Distel, then/dann, path/Pfad

OE had a rich inflectional system. Like PIE and Proto-Gmc, it was a synthetic language, whereas current English has become more analytic. Examples of this:

2.2. Proto-Germanic morphology



Inflection on verbs was richer (see table below).

The Proto-Germanic inflectional system was less complex than the PIE one. E.g.:
OE had case inflection on nouns, determiners and adjectives (see table below),

while current English only has case on pronouns (they/them/their). Unlike current English, OE Adjectives were inflected for gender and number.



PIE had 8 cases, Gmc had 4 (+occasional relics of locative & instrumental). Loss of synthetic passive, 6 tenses/aspects reduced to 2.


Reasons for this may be a substrate effect (maybe the conquered people were in a majority and had difficulties learning an elaborate inflectional system) and erosion of inflectional endings due to shift to initial stress. Alternative view: there was no real tendency toward weaker inflection in Proto-Gmc than in other IE languages (Greek, Latin, Sanskrit). The first surviving Gmc text (Gothic New Testament translation by Ulfilas, 350 CE) was from a much later period than texts in the other languages.

  • Masc.
  • Neuter

Strong Weak
Feminine

OE Noun Inflection

  • Strong Weak
  • Strong
  • Weak

Singular Nominative stan

  • nam-a
  • scip
  • eag-e

eag-e sorg sorg tung-e

  • Accusative stan
  • nam-an scip
  • tung-an

tung-an tung-an tung-an tung-ena

Genitive Dative Nom/Acc Genitive Dative

stan-es nam-an scip-es eag-an sorg-e stan-e stan-as nam-an scip-u stan-a nam-ena   scip-a

  • nam-an scip-e
  • eag-an sorg-e

eag-an sorg-a eag-ena sorg-a

3. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) (450-1100)

3.1. Early history of the British Isles

Plural

stan-um nam-um   scip-um eag-an   sorg-um tung-um



From around 6000-4000 BC: Non-Indo-Europeans in British Isles. From about 700 BC: the first IE people in British Isles: the Celts. 55 BC-410 AD: Roman presence in British Isles (abandoned 410 AD).

1

Books arguing against the AS invasion include Francis Pryor (2005) Britain AD and Stephen Oppenheimer
(2005) The Origins of the British. It is unclear how the debate surrounding these claims will be resolved.

  • 3
  • 4

The History of English replaced by the Latin alphabet with a few additional runes (<þ> or <ð> for [Ɵ, ð], <æ> for [æ], <ƿ> for [w]).

fremman ‘do’ fremme fremest fremeþ (þ = [Ɵ]) fremmaþ fremede fremedest fremede fremedon fremme fremmen fremede helpan ‘help’

OE verb inflection

Present indicative



Texts show different features according to different dialects in OE (West Saxon, Kentish, Mercian, Northumbrian). These distinctions were partly based on differences between the dialects of the Anglo-Saxon invaders.
1. sg. 2. sg. 3. sg. pl. 1. sg. 2. sg 3. sg. pl. sg. pl. sg. pl.

helpe hilpst hilpþ

Text sample: Lord’s Prayer (version probably from the 10th century)

helpaþ healp hulpe healp hulpon helpe helpen hulpe hulpen
1. Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum 2. Si þin nama gehalgod 3. to becume þin rice 4. gewurþe ðin willa 5. on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. 6. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg 7. and forgyf us ure gyltas 8. swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum 9. and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge 10. ac alys us of yfele soþlice

Father our thou that art in heavens be thy name hallowed come thy kingdom be-done thy will on earth as in heavens our daily bread give us today and forgive us our sins as we forgive their sins and not lead thou us into temptation but deliver us from evil truly.
Past indicative Present subjunctive Past subjunctive

fremeden

4. Middle English (1100 – 1500)

4.1. The Normans in England (1066ff)
3.5. Old English Syntax

Verb-final order possible in subordinate clauses; verb-second in main clauses (i.e. one constituent, not necessarily a subject, before the inflected verb).

The Norman Conquest: Normans under William the Conqueror won the battle of Hastings (1066) and took over England. The Normans were from Normandy; descendants of Norse invaders who had invaded Northern France. They spoke Norman French dialect.

(8) forÞon

he he cristen Christian wif wife had

hæfde [Baugh/Cable 1978:62]

since

(9) Þa andswarode se cyning

then answered the king
Multiple negation (negative concord):
[Baugh/Cable 1978:62]

The Middle English period is often dated from either 1100 or 1150, since by then the linguistic effects of the Norman Conquest were starting to take hold.



  • (10) & hiera
  • nænig

of.them hit not.any geÞicgean it nolde [Denison 1993:449]

  • and
  • accept
  • not.wanted

4.1.1. Linguistic effects of the Norman Conquest

‘and none of them would accept it’

(Norman) French replaced English in upper classes, but the vast majority spoke English. Since lower classes couldn’t write, not much English was written at this time. England bilingual. Thousands of Norman French words imported into the English. E.g.:
Perfect starting to develop, initially with agreement between participle and object. This started with the idea of having the object in the state named by the participle (cf.

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    Lightning …what you should know and best practices to stay safe! Lightning occurs with all thunderstorms and is what defines a thunderstorm. Over the course of one year, the earth will be struck by lightning nearly 20 million times. Every year an average 58 people are killed by lightning strikes which is more than those killed by tornadoes. Unfortunately this number is likely lower than the actual numbers of lightning deaths per year. The Carolinas face dangers from lightning throughout spring and summer. To avoid becoming a lightning statistic just remember that, when thunder roars, go indoors. What causes lightning and thunder? Lightning results from the buildup and discharge of electrical energy between positively and negatively charged ice particles within the storm cloud. A thunderstorm generates a huge static electrical charge as ice particles inside the storm collide and through friction generate a static charge. These particles of suspended ice in the thunderstorm collide as they are carried around by the storm’s updraft and downdraft. Once the static electrical charge is strong enough to travel from the cloud to the ground, a lightning bolt is created. It should be noted that the National Weather Service does not issue warnings for lightning and given the deadly nature of lightning, you should always be aware of the lightning danger anytime a thunderstorm is nearby. A good rule of thumb to live by is: When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors. A lightning bolt contains as much current as three hundred thousand amperes and around three hundred million volts. The intense electrical current heats the air around the lightning strike instantly to 50,000 degrees.
  • A Pilgrimage Through English History and Culture (M-S)

    A Pilgrimage Through English History and Culture (M-S)

    Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2009-05-01 A Pilgrimage Through English History and Culture (M-S) Gary P. Gillum [email protected] Susan Wheelwright O'Connor Alexa Hysi Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the English Language and Literature Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Gillum, Gary P.; O'Connor, Susan Wheelwright; and Hysi, Alexa, "A Pilgrimage Through English History and Culture (M-S)" (2009). Faculty Publications. 11. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/11 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. 1462 MACHIAVELLI, NICCOLÒ, 1469-1527 Rare 854.318 N416e 1675 The Works of the famous Nicolas Machiavel: citizen and Secretary of Florence. Written Originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully Translated into English London: Printed for J.S., 1675. Description: [24], 529 [21]p. ; 32 cm. References: Wing M128. Subjects: Political science. Political ethics. War. Florence (Italy)--History. Added Author: Neville, Henry, 1620-1694, tr. Contents: -The History of florence.-The Prince.-The original of the Guelf and Ghibilin Factions.-The life of Castruccio Castracani.-The Murther of Vitelli, &c. by Duke Valentino.-The State of France.- The State of Germany.-The Marriage of Belphegor, a Novel.-Nicholas Machiavel's Letter in Vindication of Himself and His Writings. Notes: Printer's device on title-page. Title enclosed within double line rule border. Head pieces. Translated into English by Henry Neville.
  • Vowel Change in English and German: a Comparative Analysis

    Vowel Change in English and German: a Comparative Analysis

    Vowel change in English and German: a comparative analysis Miriam Calvo Fernández Degree in English Studies Academic Year: 2017/2018 Supervisor: Reinhard Bruno Stempel Department of English and German Philology and Translation Abstract English and German descend from the same parent language: West-Germanic, from which other languages, such as Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish, or Frisian come as well. These would, therefore, be called “sister” languages, since they share a number of features in syntax, morphology or phonology, among others. The history of English and German as sister languages dates back to the Late antiquity, when they were dialects of a Proto-West-Germanic language. After their split, more than 1,400 years ago, they developed their own language systems, which were almost identical at their earlier stages. However, this is not the case anymore, as can be seen in their current vowel systems: the German vowel system is composed of 23 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs, while that of English has only 12 monophthongs and 8 diphthongs. The present paper analyses how the English and German vowels have gradually changed over time in an attempt to understand the differences and similarities found in their current vowel systems. In order to do so, I explain in detail the previous stages through which both English and German went, giving special attention to the vowel changes from a phonological perspective. Not only do I describe such processes, but I also contrast the paths both languages took, which is key to understand all the differences and similarities present in modern English and German. The analysis shows that one of the main reasons for the differences between modern German and English is to be found in all the languages English has come into contact with in the course of its history, which have exerted a significant influence on its vowel system, making it simpler than that of German.
  • Ancient Thunder Study Guide 2021 1

    Ancient Thunder Study Guide 2021 1

    BTE • Ancient Thunder Study Guide 2021 1 Ancient Thunder Study Guide In this study guide you will find all kinds of information to help you learn more about the myths that inspired BTE's original play Ancient Thunder, and about Ancient Greece and its infleunce on culture down to the present time. What is Mythology? ...................................................2 The stories the actors tell in Ancient Thunder are called myths. Learn what myths are and how they are associated with world cultures. When and where was Ancient Greece? ..................... 10 The myths in Ancient Thunder were created thousands of years ago by people who spoke Greek. Learn about where and when Ancient Greece was. What was Greek Art like? ..........................................12 Learn about what Greek art looked like and how it inspired artists who came after them. How did the Greeks make Theatre? .......................... 16 The ancient Greeks invented a form of theatre that has influenced storytelling for over two thousand years. Learn about what Greek theatre was like. What was Greek Music like? ..................................... 18 Music, chant, and song were important to Greek theatre and culture. Learn about how the Greeks made music. What are the Myths in Ancient Thunder? ................. 20 Learn more about the Greek stories that are told in Ancient Thunder. Actvities ........................................................................................................... 22 Sources ..............................................................................................................24 Meet the Cast .................................................................................................... 25 2 BTE • Ancient Thunder Study Guide 2021 What is Mythology? Myths are stories that people tell to explain and understand how things came to be and how the world works. The word myth comes from a Greek word that means story. Mythology is the study of myths.
  • University of Copenhagen

    University of Copenhagen

    Chapter 10: Germanic Hansen, Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard; Kroonen, Guus Published in: The Indo-European languages Publication date: 2021 Document version Peer reviewed version Citation for published version (APA): Hansen, B. S. S., & Kroonen, G. (Accepted/In press). Chapter 10: Germanic. In T. Olander (Ed.), The Indo- European languages: New perspectives on a language family Cambridge University Press. Download date: 26. sep.. 2021 9. Germanic Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen University of Copenhagen Guus Kroonen Leiden University & University of Copenhagen 1 Introduction Germanic languages are spoken by about 500 million native speakers. It is a medium- large subgroup of the Indo-European language family and owes much of its current distribution to the relatively recent expansion of English. From a historical perspective, notable old Germanic languages were Gothic, Old Norse, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Franconian (poorly attested) and Old High German (Bousquette & Salmons 2017: 387–8). Gothic, mainly known from a 4th- century bible translation, continued to be spoken in a local variant in Crimea until the late 18th century but subsequently went extinct (Nielsen 1981: 283–8). The continu- ants of Old Saxon survive marginally in largely moribund pockets of Low German Platt. The Frisian languages are still spoken in northern Germany and the Dutch prov- ince of Fryslân, but the use of these languages is in decline (Versloot 2020). English and German are the largest Germanic languages by numbers of speakers; third comes Dutch, which has descended from Low Franconian. The Nordic languages (Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Elfdalian, Gutnish and Danish), which have descended from different varieties of Old Norse, cover the most extensive territory within Europe (Henriksen & van der Auwera 1994).